My Plenary Talks

Did you know Steve Jobs was ousted from Apple in 1985 or that JK Rowling first manuscript was rejected by 12 publishers? Scratch the surface of any great success and you are likely to see a catalogue of failures. So why are we so scared of failure? Why are we so focussed on the right and so terrified of the wrong? Sometimes we need to get something wrong just so we can see where we are making the mistake. In this talk we will look at how we as teachers can help our students learn how to fail by teaching them to address problem and how to learn from mistakes. That will mean our students will be more willing to make mistakes, more willing to take risks and help themselves fail to learn.

60 mins

All

Not Just another brick in the wall - a conversation with Pink Floyd.

For years the Pink Floyd classic has been an anthem and inspiration to rebellious students all over the world but has anyone every challenged it? In this plenary I will have an imaginary conversation with Pink Floyd to try to find out why they so were disenchanted with education and to try tackle the problems they describe.

45-60 Mins

Teenagers

Brains - What are they good for?

Do you know how the individuals in your class tick? Do you know what they are thinking or feeling? Do you ever consider how you can make them feel more comfortable? In this talk we will consider how to how brains work, how that affects the learning process, and how we can create more brain friendly lessons for our students.

60 – 90 Minutes

Teenagers

Changing with the Times

We are living in a digital age but how does this affect the learning styles and expectations of our students. Can we continuing teaching in the same manner or should our teaching reflect the changing environment around us? In this talk we will look at some of the habits of the digital generation and discuss what lessons we can learn from them and consider if we can apply these in our classroom. N.B. this is NOT a session about technology although it has some technology integrated into it.